


Sing a Blues

by doctor__idiot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10x21 "Dark Dynasty", Angst, Episode Related, Hand Jobs, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3921442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor__idiot/pseuds/doctor__idiot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn’t do this for themselves, they did it for the good of humanity, and Sam kept trying to tell himself that but it was hard to care much about anything when you lost any- and everyone who had ever meant something to you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing a Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 10x21.
> 
> This ... kind of got away from me. I was aiming for short and sweet (or as sweet as it gets) and now it's neither.  
> I didn't tag this as Established Relationships because I wouldn't say that's what it is, but it isn't First Time either. I sort of left it open for you to decide for yourselves.
> 
> Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, except for the idea. Unbeta'd (and it's late and I'm tired so I apologize for any mistakes).

“Dean, please get up off the floor.”

“You come down here.”

Sam sighed and it sounded almost as weary as Dean’s voice. He picked up one of the books that were strewn across floor and surfaces, flattened the crumpled pages with the palm of his hand.

It was eerily quiet now, Dean having screamed himself hoarse, and Sam could practically hear the dislodged dust settling back onto half-empty shelves, thrown papers and books, and that one – maybe there were two, Sam couldn’t really tell from the shards – knocked-over lamp.

He regarded the chaos with emotionless detachment. His mind absently supplied him with the thought that tidying up the mess would at least give him something to do. And Dean time to flee as far as the hallways of the seemingly never-ending bunker would allow.

Because even though Sam knew he was the last person on earth his brother wanted to see right now, or maybe ever, he couldn’t let him run away. Not with this particular Sword of Damocles that was still rattling loose over their heads, faster than ever.

“It had to be the books, huh? Couldn’t have taken it out on me?”

Sam had said it lightly, or as lightly as he managed, but it wasn’t actually a joke. God knew he deserved it. Deserved worse.

Dean looked at him for the first time in three days. He hadn’t done that when they had gotten Charlie out of that motel room, not when they had burned her body, not when they had gotten shit-face drunk and had needed to hold onto each other to stay vertical.

With the years spent in hell tacked on to his human life, Dean was nearly eighty years old and for the first time he looked it. 

Sam physically recoiled. The guilt was crushing him but he couldn’t feel much through the too-fresh grief and he wondered when it would come crashing down over his head and drown him. He already felt like he could barely breathe.

“I don’t blame you, Sam.”

Sam jerked, making to respond but Dean talked over him, voice rough and abused-sounding whenever he raised the volume any higher than a whisper.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m mad at you. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry in my whole life. But half of that is probably the Mark and I don’t blame you for her death.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “I’m sure you’ve got that covered for the both of us.”

The irony of their reversed roles wasn’t lost on Sam but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. It wasn’t much of a relief, Dean not blaming him, because it _was_ his fault and no one would be able to convince him otherwise.

At the moment, he was feeling too much at once but nothing he could grasp, he mostly just felt hollow.

Dean wasn’t slurring his words but the bottle at his feet was empty save for a few drops and Sam dimly remembered it being half full when he had seen it earlier. He couldn’t even muster up the energy to chastize Dean for it. He might just go and get himself his own poison.

They had overcome so many obstacles, taken so many hits over the years, and it was always just one more job, one more big bad and then one more person to save, usually each other in one way or another, and Sam wasn’t sure how long they could go on like this. There was nothing but pain waiting for them, no matter what they did and the bad times had long outweighed the good.

They didn’t do this for themselves, they did it for the good of humanity, and Sam kept trying to tell himself that but it was hard to care much about anything when you lost any- and everyone who had ever meant something to you.

Charlie felt a bit like the last straw and it wasn’t just a mistake anymore, wasn’t just the universe dealing them a shitty card anymore and Sam didn’t believe in karma. What he had always believed in was himself and his brother, going up as a team, but that seemed taken away from him now. Not entirely without his own doing, he was ready to admit that.

He would be done, right now, regardless of how many people might need saving, he would be done if it wasn’t for Dean and that stupid mark that drove a divide between them that not even the demon blood had managed. Sam wanted to cry and rage and die on the spot because he couldn’t take any of it, but he wasn’t allowed. Not with Dean’s imminent Hulk-out hanging over their heads.

Sam still wasn’t sure they could avert that, even with Charlie having cracked the code, but he _was_ sure that, in case they did, something else would come up out of nowhere and sucker-punch them. As it always did. Sam couldn’t even put in words how sick and tired he was.

It was hard to read Dean these days. It wasn’t the lying to each other, even though that didn’t improve anything, but his brother was different. Sam didn’t think is was the mark in itself but the promise it held, the burden that weighed on them both but Dean clearly thought he had to shoulder alone.

There had been many instances like this, and then again, not a single one like this. It had never felt so much like the end as it did now. But maybe Sam didn’t remember the other times correctly. He just knew he couldn’t do this without Dean, and by ‘this’ he meant living.

Dean’s eyes followed him as he sat down next to him.

“Y’know, I’d meant it as a joke when I told you to sit on the floor.”

Sam couldn’t be faulted for taking that the wrong way since he still couldn’t believe Dean even deigned to speak to him. He was practically scrambling up off the floor to give his brother space when Dean’s hand unexpectedly grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

“That wasn’t me tellin’ you to get lost, jeez,” he grumbled.

Sam must have flinched and now _Dean_ was the one taking things the wrong way because he quickly snatched his hand back and Sam hadn’t wanted that, hadn’t wanted that at all.

A slightly hysterical laugh made its way out of his mouth. “Our communication fucking sucks.”

Dean grunted, “Tell me ‘bout it.”

“Dean, I’m so –“

“Don’t.”

He didn’t raise his voice and he sounded more tired than angry but Sam snapped his mouth shut all the same. Maybe it was that exhaustion specifically that made him obey despite the desire to explain the inexplainable burning inside him, the need to somehow make it _okay_ between them even though he didn’t know how.

He nodded pointlessly, falling silent beside his brother. Dean had his head leaned against the wall and the slightly contorted way he was sitting couldn’t possibly be comfortable but he didn’t seem like he planned on moving any time soon.

Earlier, Sam had been scared that Dead had finally lost it. It wasn’t by far the first time he had ransacked a room, nor would it be the last time, surely. But the look in his eyes, that crazy, wild glint that meant revenge and insanity and unadulterated hatred. Sam suspected that, after hell, Dean had been a little insane all along.

Perhaps he had simply kept it in check until now.

“Dean –,” he tried again and was overruled once more.

“This has to mean something.”

Sam wasn’t following at first but it dawned on him as Dean went on, “She cracked the code. Well, the first code. Maybe Rowena can, fuckin’ Rowena, man, I still can’t believe –“

Sam’s guess was that he cut himself off before he said or did something he might regret later.

He made to apologise again but Dean lifted his hand in a dismissive gesture. Not forgiveness, merely a sign of ‘I don’t want to talk about this right now’.

“That mean you’ll let me save you?”

Dean looked at him, eyes weary, “Can I stop you?”

It was clearly a rhetorical question and Sam swallowed the response. “I mean, will you help?”

“Yes, Sam, I’ll help. I think the damn book will be our demise but since we can’t get rid of it, and no way are we giving it back to those bastards, we might as well use it.”

Before Sam could say anything, he added, “That by no means means I’m not still mad as hell or that I’ll forgive you, Sam, because ... I know the stunt you pulled is a classic ‘me’ move but I can’t just overlook it. And Charlie…”

His voice broke on the name and he closed his mouth, inhaling deeply, possibly to keep tears at bay, more likely not to conjure up a repeat of the rearrangement of their belongings earlier.

He had said he didn’t blame Sam but Sam wasn’t sure he bought that. Dean might not do it consciously, might not want to, but he still did. At least peripherally.

“I still can’t pinpoint Cas’ role in all of this. Do I need to punch him?”

Sam’s brain needed a moment to catch up. He quickly shook his head, “I begged him. He didn’t wanna lie to you. None of them did. Well, I’m sure Rowena couldn’t care less but even she was kind of cordial, although for her own reasons, I’m sure. They all helped because I forced them to. I’m really the only one who deserves punching.”

Dean looked straight at him and in a strange voice said, “Yes, you do.”

If the situation was different and Sam didn’t know any better, he would say Dean sounded _fond_.

He might not be far off, though, because Dean suddenly guffawed, “Y’know, I never thought this would be a problem.” He shook his head in apparent amusement, though what was amusing Sam had no idea.

He was confused. “What wouldn’t be a problem?”

“You,” Dean said wryly, “The things you’re doing. You’re willing to do. For me I mean, there was never... When you left for Stanford, I was glad you got out because of everything this life does to a person. But because of us in particular.”

Sam was helplessly lost. “Us?”

“I’d do anything for you, Sam, and I pretty much have and, man, it scares the crap out of me most of the time but that’s just kinda what it is for me. I never wanted that for you. I never wanted you to need me so much that you couldn’t let go when you have to.”

“I…” Sam was at a loss for words. Not just because that was probably the largest amount of words Dean had said to him in a long time, but because they sounded, and probably were, so genuine. Open und honest, everything neither of them had been for the past months.

Dean’s smile was sardonic but not cruel. “When you said ‘We all love you’ to me in the car, I realized how much all of it comes down to that. ’S not that I’m not aware of it but you... Charlie was ready to risk everything at the drop of a hat, just because she _loved_ me. I still can’t wrap my mind around it but I know exactly what that’s like.”

He was looking at Sam while he said that last bit and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. His throat had closed up and he didn’t dare make an attempt at speaking.

“I guess I’d just always hoped you’d be above that. You know, be able to make rational decisions, not ... collude with demons and witches and risk yourself and other people. That’s my job.”

His lips curled into a tired grin and Sam exhaled. “I haven’t been making rational decisions when it comes to you since the day I was born, Dean.”

“I know that now.” Dean sighed. “Don’t mean I can’t hate it. And it sure as hell don’t mean I don’t wanna hit you for it.”

“For loving you?”

Dean looked slightly taken back at Sam laying it out so openly. They both knew it wasn’t right, though. It wasn’t the love in itself that posed the problem, it was the unhealthy lengths either of them was prepared to go to. But it didn’t need any more addressing tonight, so Dean just said, “Yeah.”

“Where do we go from here?”

Dean shrugged, looking as helpless as Sam had been feeling the last few days. “I don’t know, Sammy. We work. Decipher the code, see if there’s anythin’ useful in the book and give it a try. I know it sounds clichéd but I don’t want Charlie to’ve died in vain.”

Sam nodded, sharing the horrible sentiment. “Me either.”

He thought he would have been more relieved to receive promise of Dean’s co-operation. It scared him how apathetic he was to even the one thing that was worth risking everything for. It was so difficult to feel much of anything. In order to stow the pain away, he had to clamp down on everything else as well. It was the way he worked.

Dean was staring at him with an odd expression on his face and the haunted, open look in his eyes twisted Sam’s intestines. The need to make it okay, to soothe and comfort, but also to take, the yearning to touch, it all hit him like a brick wall.

He wasn’t sure who was first but both of them moved and somehow it was compatible and their lips crashed into each other, teeth clicking, and then it was a tangle of Dean’s fingers in Sam’s hair, pulling, and Sam’s tongue in Dean’s mouth.

Sam wasn’t thinking, if he were, he might have stopped this before it got too far because as much as he wanted it, Dean was too angry and they both were too hurt and it was really nothing other than desperation and uncertainty and the overwhelming craving to feel something that wasn’t pain for a change.

Dean’s hand scrambled under Sam’s shirt, heedless of the buttons, fingernails dragging over his skin and he shivered, holding Dean tightly against him, trying to get under his clothes in return.

Dean snaked out of Sam’s grip, shoving him down to the floor and straddling his hips. He bit at the spot right below Sam’s jaw, teeth grazing, and Sam jerked under him.

A moan worked itself out of his mouth and he didn’t smother it, grinding his hips up into Dean’s and reveling in the little gasping noise Dean made.

His brother’s cock was a hard line of heat along his groin and Sam worked his hands between them, not bothering to open Dean’s fly more than half-way, and shoved a hand in, gripping him with fingers that were much steadier than he felt.

Dean muffled his moan against Sam’s collarbone but Sam wouldn’t have it, used his free hand to pull Dean away by his hair.

Irises nearly swallowed by his pupils and lips a dark shade of red, Dean looked at Sam and Sam couldn’t figure out his expression. A gush of guilt hit him, the wrongness of them doing this here and now and at all, but he braced himself against it, captured Dean’s mouth with his again and he swore his brother melted against him.

Sam jacked him slowly but with a firm grip, Dean making tiny breathy sounds that Sam lapped right up with his tongue. Dean had gotten a hand of his own down Sam’s pants and they were moving against each other and it wasn’t perfect by far, jeans chafing and there wasn’t a lot of space with Dean on top of Sam but Sam wouldn’t trade it for the world and he came much faster than he would have liked.

Dean wasn’t far behind him though and for an incredibly loaded moment no one spoke. Eventually and with a groan, Dean rolled off him, lying on his back on the floor for another minute.

If Sam had had any say, he would probably never have gotten up, content with Dean next to him, pressed against him from shoulder to elbow.

No one asked him, though, and Dean pushed himself off the floor, mumbling something about a shower in that gravely voice of his and he walked away from Sam, jeans precarious on his hips.

Sam waited roughly five minutes, giving Dean time for a quick shower to put off the fallout a little longer. He didn’t think there was any strength for confrontation left in him for the day.

Then he got up and followed suit.


End file.
